Own Destiny
by muskiet-splat
Summary: After Dumbledore's death Harry know he must find his own Destiny... Abbandoned, read New beginning.
1. The War

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, I am only writing the story to keep myself busy.

After Dumbledore's death Harry knew he must take his destiny in his own hands, no one is there to tell him what to do anymore, also no one to use him like a pawn.

Was this what it felt like to be an adult? To know that something depended on you and no matter how you may do it or how you feel, it has to be done.

It was raining. Harry saw the droplets slide slowly down the slanted car windows. What he wouldn't give to get on with it. He knew what he was supposed to do and staying idle made him panic.

Dudley was playing games on his game boy and Aunt Petunia was complaining about the neighbours again. His uncle however kept throwing him pointed stares, as if Harry was going to spontaneously combust any moment and ruin his new car's seat.

Some things never change…

Home sweet home Harry thought as he walked into the Dursleys unthinkable clean living room. Harry went up the stairs massaging his acing forehead, followed by Vernon's instructions to never leave the house and stay out of sight for the whole holiday and he will find his food on the kitchen table each night.

After that his uncle just rambled on about freaks in his house and having to take care of other people's children because they weren't able to do it themselves and decided to die and leave responsibility to other hard working folks like themselves, the same as usual, with just some added turns here and there. He dumped his trunk at the end of his bed and lay down.

That was his plan, to go after the Horcruxis and Voldemort alone. The problem was finding a place to start.

Was that what it meant to be grown up? Knowing where to start and knowing what to do. Dumbledore always knew what to do. Always knew what was happening and always knew what to do about it. When his head master was around, you had that feeling of security in side that made you feel safe. Dumbledore would save you…

Though there was no more Dumbledore…

That was his plan, to go after the Horcruxis and Voldemort. To go after them alone.

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Harry's eyes where drawn immediately to a golden glint on his wall. The sun was rising over Little Winging. It had been a long night…

He had been thinking a lot. Hoping that thinking would help him understand the task that lay ahead. Instead it just made him doubt it all again.

_There is no room for doubt_

Harry rolled off of his bed and stretched. The sun was pouring into his room, and the sounds of other people getting on with their lives outside filled his ears, cars roling by and kids laughing in the park It was too perfect a summers day to spend in his room.

His room.

That was odd. It was odd thinking about things like that when seven years ago he lived in a cupboard. It seemed like such a long time. So much had happened in that time. So many people had waltzed into his life and so many had left it. He had changed so much…

His goals had changed so much.

_Change is the only constant thing in life…_

With a sad smile Harry closed the door of his room and walked down the deserted hall of the house. He could still hear his Uncle's snoring coming from their bed room…

The kitchen was cold and clean, not yet touched by the sun's paint. He had had so many memories in this kitchen. This entire house held so much of his childhood. Even though it was never really all good, it still had that familiarity about it. It all seemed so safe…

Nothing was safe anymore. It was all the past and belonged there. This was the future and it depended upon him…

The Horcruxis, Voldemort

But first he needed to be better, he needed to know more, learn more spells and he needed to get fit, he didn't want to die. He would never give Voldemort that satisfaction.

The door opened. Harry jumped up out of shock and reached automatically for his wand. His grip relaxed on it however when he realised that it had been Dudley.

"Hey Big D." Harry said looking up at the boy.

Dudley was now the ideal boxer, in height and in mussel. Even though Harry would never admit it, that is how he wanted to look. He wouldn't really want the pig-like features…but that healthy fit look that Dudley portrayed was appealing. If Harry had to choose who would be most likely to kill a dark lord, he would defiantly go for Dudley because the guys' fists looked as if they could inflict some serious damage…

He really needed to buff up…

Dudley turned his red eyes towards him and grunted, "What do you want?" He stumbled over to the fridge and jerked open the door. "Is dad letting you out of the room? I thought he would lock you in."

Harry raised his eyebrow as Dudley pulled out of the fridge with a bottle of ice cold water which he started drinking gradually. His cousin sat down in the chair opposite him bouncing the bottle back and forth between hands.

There was an awkward silence. Harry wanted to get up and leave but for some odd reason he was glued to his seat waiting…

"Harry." Dudley said in a tired voice, "You know last time when that crackpot old man came to our house…"

"Dumbledore," Harry answered solemnly.

"Yeah him…he said that mum and dad inflicted damage on m…" Dudley let the sentence hang in the air. "nah, never mind."

Harry said nothing as his cousin stood up and left the kitchen treading noisily up the stairs towards his room. Harry could guess where the boy was all night. Most probably out with his gang at some party or another.

_Yeah dud, I think Dumbledore knew what he was talking about._

He would stay here for as long as he needed to. He would need to get something to keep him busy in his room for the next few weeks. He promised Dumbledore he would not leave there until his seventeenth birthday, and he would try to keep that promise. But if they start something he might consider leaving for a while.

He sat back in his chair. The house was silent again as Dudley seemed to find his bed. He would never come back here again. He would never see his room again, nor his family. He would never come back.

It made him feel at lost.

Sure he might have hated growing up here. But he had grown up here after all.

It was dark, he decided, dark enough to get out, and the Dursley's were all asleep. Harry stood up, and walked stealthily across the floor, he stopped at the door to check if he could hear Vernon snoring. There it was and he could swear it sounded louder than Fluffy's…

It was the first of August. It was time for the big change.

Harry slipped his wand out of his jean pocket and picked up his backpack. The front door swung open and he was out into the cool early morning air.

He walked down the street as quickly as he could. Not caring that the front door was still open. And not bothered by the fact that the most of his belongings where still hidden in his room. He was out. It was starting…

He walked until he reached the end of the street and stopped turning back for one last glance. He would miss the old place. He would miss the identical houses and the perfectly manicured lawns. He would miss it all…

The moon sailed behind a cloud and when it remerged, Harry Potter was gone.

The Leaky Cauldron wasn't very busy, there was just a few people scattered around the pub some looking pretty shady and others nearly asleep in their chairs. Harry sat down at a table in the corner. Looking at the man slumped over the bar table, how can someone actually get so drunk he wondered. Tom came and asked him if he wanted something. Harry replied that he would like a meal and a room. Tom was never one to ask a lot of questions and complied, room 11 was open; Harry could have it for the night.

Just after Tom left the man sitting closest to Harry stood up and went away, which was probably good as he looked almost as bad as the guy at the bar, leaving that day's edition of the Daily Prophet on the table. Harry needed to know what was going on in the wizarding world and took the paper.

To his surprise there was a whole section of the paper on Voldemort and his latest attacks, also the latest death count. The count stood on 495. The Death Eater raids were small, but came up regularly, there isn't a day gone buy that at least 7 towns are attacked. It looked as if they had a hit and run strategy, hitting quick and running away even faster. The raids ran all over Britton, and seldom lasted more than 40 minutes. Muggle towns were mostly attacked although the magic community was not left out of the action. Lastly Voldemort didn't kill the people, he just tortured them, children, parents, and families so many lives changed or nearly destroyed forever!

What was Voldemort playing at? What was he waiting for? What was he doing, for that matter! The attacks are nothing like what he used to do, the death count stood basically at nil considering his past reins numbers, really the guy has gone mad. Madder than he used to be anyhow.

After Harry ate his dinner, it tasted a lot better than any of the food he would have gotten at the Dursleys. The steak, roasted potato, vegetables and pumpkin juice were almost as good as Hogwarts's. He went to his room, his trunk was already there. Harry changed into pyjamas and climbed into bed, hoping for a good nights rest. Tomorrow was going to be a very busy day if he wanted to get ready for what lay ahead.

Harry woke up early the next morning and couldn't quite place where he was, or why he was there. He rubbed his eyes and it all came back to him.

The room was dusty and old; there where spiders dancing in the corners on their stages of cobwebs. Harry had been here before however…he remembered it well.

A warm smile touched his face as he thought about his first time in Diagon Alley. It was magical…

Harry went to Gringots first to fill up his moneybag, and exchange some galleons for muggle money, pounds to use in London. The white building stood out like a glittering diamond in the early morning sun. Though it was lonely in the abandoned streets.

Where were the people? Where were the laughing children and the mad old ladies trying to sell of second hand love potion? Where was the magical atmosphere? What had happened to Diagon Alley?

_The war…_

Harry walked down the abandoned road passing a person here and there. Most of the shops where closed, the rest where boarded up and emptied. He had hoped of buying another wand but realised too late that Olivander was gone. Diagon Alley seemed pointless at the moment.

It felt really odd walking into muggle London. He stood back at the pub entrance watching the people flow past him all on their way to work or hurrying off to breakfast.

This was it. He was going there. He was going to Godrics Hollow where it all started… Where Dumbledore told him he would need to start looking. He was going to the beginning.

Harry looked once more at the picture of his parents laughing in a room that seemed to be a kitchen. He realised that it probably didn't look that way anymore. That it was probably all in ruins…however he needed something to apparate to.

His hands let go of the door frame and Harry Potter fell into the stream of people who where running about their business, not knowing that the beginning of the end had just begun.


	2. Gordics Hollow

The beginning of the end, an interesting sentence. But what does it really mean? What does it mean to begin the end? That question is not so hard when the answer is Voldemort. The hard part is how.

Harry walked down the street, wondering how Gordics hollow would look like. People brushed against him in a big hurry, late for a business meeting or to pick up their children from school, or some unimportant reason. Saving the world was a reason to be in a hurry, yet Harry wasn't. He was lost in thought. Trying to get a picture of Gordics hollow brought up some memories, not real ones, just the photos in his album.

A smiling Serius holding a baby Harry…

Lily kissing and hugging James lovingly…

It would have been so different… but it isn't and that's the reason he must begin the end, so to speak.

Harry dwelt into a side street and ended up in an abandoned, dead end alley. He had finally got a picture of what the kitchen should have looked like from the photo. No one was around so Harry closed his eyes and thought again how the place looked, not thinking that it might not look the same anymore, since it burned down.

When the squeezing feeling finally stopped and Harry's feet found firm ground he couldn't open his eyes. The thought to see the place where his parents died scared him… Why did he come here? Because Dumbledore said so!

_Open your eyes, open your eyes, OPEN YOUR EYES!_

Harry finally opened his eyes.

The house was indeed in ruins, It was between some low hills with a little town just near. People were scarce and the town looked in ruins, most of it anyhow. From where he stood he could see quite a bit of the town and most of it desperately needed a new coat of paint. That was the least of the problems: some houses had holes in the roof, some had walls almost caving in. Harry could almost swear Voldemort had been there, that would at least explain the state the town was in.

Back to the reason Harry came there. Dumbledore said that this was where everything began, so where would he look first. The house or the _graveyard. _The house first Harry thought, he was already standing there and he didn't know if he really wanted to see his parents' graves right now. Not when it was almost dark. He wasn't afraid of ghosts, but meeting one in a dark graveyard would not be that good.

Harry walked around the walls still standing around the site the house once stood. The house looked to have had large comfortable rooms. He found what looked to be the living room, since it had a fireplace. Harry sat down and looked at the sunset. The sun shone bright red on the horizon, the sky also red , looking as if it was painted with blood. And still Harry sat with his back against the wall imagining how the house would have looked if it hadn't burnt down. Slowly Harry sank into sleep.

His dreams were all but peaceful. Flashes of photo's he had of his parents. The ruined house. An evil cackling laugh. And the sound that has been haunting him as far as he could remember: his mothers cry as she tried to protect him from Voldemort. All swirling, flashing, mixing into one disfigured nightmare.

Harry woke with a searing pain in his scar, not able to open his eyes, again. He heard footsteps breaking the deadly silence. Stopping a few paces away. A cold, hard voice saying in an undertone "I'll be watching your every move, boy!" Again the menacing evil laugh and suddenly nothing more except the almost unbearing silence.

Who was that Harry wondered as the pain in his scar disappeared as suddenly as it came. Harry looked around there was no sign that anyone just stood there. The stars were bright Harry marked, and the moon shone _red_ or was it just his imagination. As the sun would be up soon Harry started to walk down the overgrown path in search of some breakfast in the town. Halfway down the slope Harry stopped to look at the sunrise. It was beautiful. The golden glint of the first sunrays was magical chasing away the darkness to give way to a new day. Pinks and greys and blues and orange, a picture not even Picasso could try to replicate.

_Why have I never seen this before?_ He was up early almost every morning at the Dursley's, why not? Why not see it before?

_I never thought to look at it, always looking at the problem, never at the light that may shine behind it. Never looking at the good of the world, stuck in the evil._

That would change here, Voldemort would die and he would be the one to do it. The darkness would give way to light. As night just gave way to day.

As he neared the town Harry could here some sounds of people rising. But not everywhere like in Surrey, just in some houses. Down the road was an inn. Not the brightest place on the block, but it should have food.

The door was hanging loose from its hinges, staying up just by fate. Paint peeling of the walls, at least the windows was whole. Dust covered the grandpa clock standing in one of the corners. The early morning sun lighting up the dust particles drifting up from the chair where Harry put down his backpack. The counter looked clean and the man behind it fast asleep.

"Hello" Nothing happened.

"Sir, can you hear me?" Still nothing.

Harry rang the bell and it echoed in the empty foyer. The man behind the counter almost fell from his chair, knocking his classes askew.

"May I help you?" He asked placing his glasses back on his nose. He had a long face, a round nose and his eyes was just slits in his head. His head was almost bold, he had just a few grey hairs on each side of his head.

"Yeah, I wondered if you serve breakfast?"

"If you go down the hall, on your left you will see a big door, that will be the dining room. You can pay there."

"Thanks"

The dining room was in a better condition than the part of the inn Harry saw. It was clean and not that dusty. It was a small room with just a few tables and chairs against the walls, in the centre there stood a big table with dishes, some full of food, but most empty. Harry chose a seat near the window, looking over a rather large rundown, overgrown garden. He took a plate and started to load eggs on his plate. Together with toast, it didn't make a bad breakfast.

Halfway through his meal a man looking to be the chef came out of a door to the side of the room. He looked at Harry, grunted and left the room by the big door leading to the foyer. After a few minutes he come back and walked over to Harry.

"5 pounds you know"

"Ok," And Harry took the money out of his bag.

"Have you been here before?" The man asked looking intently at Harry.

"No, … why?" Harry asked, but the man was walking towards his kitchen as soon as he said no.

Harry wondered why the man asked, but left the town s soon as he finished eating. Today would be a day as good as any other to visit the graves of his parents. Better get that over and done with.

The cemetery was just out of town, on the opposite side of the burnt down house. When Harry neared the fence of the cemetery he suddenly didn't feel so confident anymore. The feeling of hope he had when the sun rose that morning had disappeared. Still nearing the cemetery Harry suddenly felt afraid. _What would he find in there?_

At the entrance Harry stopped and looked back, the town wasn't that far would he just turn around and go back? No! He must, someday he might be sorry he never went there. And Dumbledore said he must go back to the beginning, and what was more back than the death of his parents. He needed to see them.

He took a deep breath and stepped through the gate. The last time he was in a graveyard suddenly flashed in his head… _Cerdic. _The time he won the tri-wizard cup, the time Cerdic died, the time Voldemort regained his body using his blood… Harry shook his head violently, now was not the time to think about that. He doesn't need bad memories of graveyards now.

The cemetery had a dark feel to it, despite the warm morning. Harry walked down the path in the middle, graves on both sides. The graveyard resembled the town, just as rundown, weeds and grasses growing everywhere, including the path. Most of the trees were dead. Headstones where broken and cracked.

Harry stopped at one. It must have been majestic once. It stood as tall as he was now, and he has grown a bit over the summer, with a huge angel on top. The name was partly worn away. The man must have been rich. It must have been a man since the words _"my loving husband"_ was all he could make out on the grave. Though some of the letters were missing.

Harry continued down the overgrown path looking for the names he was desperately looking for. James and Lily Potter. Harry found them, near the end of the path. The gravestones were covered in dust and the graves littered with leaves and covered in grass. They must have been charmed, because beside the dust, they were still in a fine condition. Harry sat down between the two graves. Looking at the one, then the other. He stood up on his knees and wiped the dust from his mothers name with a shaking hand. His vision became foggy, not knowing why. Then he realised it was his own tears. He turned to his father's grave and wiped the dust of again.

_Don't cry, not now, please not now!_ Harry wiped the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand. He also wiped the rest of the dust from the two gravestones. On his mothers grave there stood "_Lily Potter, Loving wife and caring mother._** I'm not that sure when they died, the date must just come in here, can you help please? I think 30 October 1989**_" _On his fathers grave stood _"James Potter, Loving husband and caring father, _**30 October 1989**_" _

His hand touched something small carved into the bottom of his father's gravestone. _What can it be?_ Harry looked down to see. _Left of the right, front of the back, a secret you'll find of what you lack._

What does it mean? Harry read the words again. What on earth does it mean? Harry looked at his mother's gravestone, nothing at the bottom. He inspected both the two stones entirely, but found nothing else except _his_ name carved in small at the back of his mother's stone. He sat with his back against his father's gravestone pondering over the words that didn't seem to mean anything and why his name? It didn't have any special meaning as far as he knew. But everyone else always attached his name to either "the boy who lived' or "the saviour". And that wouldn't have had any meaning to his parents, would it? He was so lost in thought that he didn't hear the footsteps approach, or see the clouds covering the bright morning sky.


End file.
